3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Dave,

This is excellent news. I've not been the biggest fan of the WPBSA's drive to attract new sponsors, but with the four BBC contracts safely sponsored, now is the time, as you said previously with China - possibly - getting an additional tournament, to try and get past tournaments back that have sliped there grasp.

Couple of questions:

Do you know the total amount of money the BBC have put it - ie resources etc - to the deals they have done for all four tournaments?

How much is Maplin's three year deal worth each season to the UK?

How much is the winners cheque for the UK this year - compared to previous years/sponsors?

It's always been around £80,000 though, hasn't it? What I find remarkable in this day-and-age, is that winners cheques in snooker tournaments fluctuate up-and-down. Considering this is the second biggest ranking tournament, I thought it would be higher than this.

On another note, well done to O'Sulivan who won his third PSL tournament on the spin...and it was never in doubt. I do think if Dott had come through the White encounter - which I thought he should've done - he could've given the Rocket a game, but it seemed the London pair were more intent on making hay of odds of 40-1 for four or more centuries in the final.

It was great to see Paul Hunter's sister make a speech and present the trophy.

What do you think of Willie Thorne's theory of giving the PSL a tournament on the calendar? I don't quite know what he meant by this - presumably an invitation tournament, as I doubt players would be happy if it was turned into a ranking tournament. But the WPBSA don't have that much/nothing to do with Matchroom sport/PSL, so it would seem unlikely.

Meanwhile, I see that although White didn't have too bad a weekend, John Parrott is fast catching him up. He got thrashed 9-1 today at the UK. Surely, he is having serious reservations about hanging up the cue this season?